Who Do You Trust to Provide

I want to start at verse 22. This section is maybe a little different than we would normally see in the Bible, but it's a very common part of Scripture. We don't talk about these a lot, about giving, but that's what it's about. But now I want to set this in the context of what the Scripture is trying to teach us about God and about the world and about how God wants to be a part of our lives. People of Israel have been taken out of Egypt, you'll recall, the long journey in the wilderness to try to get to the land of promise. Whenever they were preparing to go into the land of promise, God was careful to make sure that they understood exactly what was taking place. Chapter 11, when He was renewing the covenant that He'd made with Abraham, renewed with Isaac, renewed with Jacob, that comes from Genesis chapter 12. This is a foundation stone on which all of the rest of Scripture exemplifies or expounds on. This covenant He made with Abraham was a basis of the whole nation of Israel and the promise that God had made to them. When He called Abraham, the Lord said to Abraham, leave your country, your people, your father's household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. All the peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Abraham was promised that if he would live in obedience to God, that his life would be dramatically different. I will take you to a place that I know and give it to you. I will bless you. Now the blessing that he intended to give was not simply spiritual, but it was for all of his life. I will bless you so that you'll see your life as a blessing. I will stand between you and those who are your enemies. I will be your protection. I will bless those that bless you. I will make others who receive you a blessing and I will curse those that curse you. I will protect you. So what God promised is I will make you a great nation so all the world will know who you are. In chapter 11 of the book of Deuteronomy, he says in verse 8, he continues, he reaffirms, at Mount Sinai the covenant was reaffirmed, but now as they get ready to go into the land, God again tells them what he's doing and why he's doing it. Observe therefore all the commands I've given you today so that you may have the strength to go in and take over the land you're crossing the Jordan to possess. He promises to give them the ability to do what he tells them to do. And so that you may live long in that land the Lord swore to your forefathers to give to them and their descendants. Now see he's renewing this covenant promise that he made. A land flowing with milk and honey. The phrase he uses is a description of a land that is bountiful, where there's a lot of food, abundance of it, good food, rich food. And the land you're entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt from which you came where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of how they irrigated the land then. They had a big paddle wheel and a man would walk on that paddle wheel all day long and move that paddle wheel and push the water down through the canal to irrigate the ground. So it was a lot of work to irrigate anything. Where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as a vegetable garden. But the land you're crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drink rain from heaven. It's a land the Lord your God cares for. The eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to the end. So if you faithfully obey the commands I'm giving you today to love the Lord your God and to serve Him with all your heart, with all your soul, then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rain, so that you may gather in your grain new wine and oil. I'll provide grass in the fields for your cattle and you will eat and be satisfied. What God promises when they enter the land is that He is going to make sure they have everything they need to be able to live. It's a part of the covenant. I am the Lord your God. I will guide you in choices you need to make. I will provide the needs that you have. I will protect you. And I will make sure that your life has purpose and value and meaning. All these four qualities God promises people from the beginning all the way through to us in the New Testament. Now, He's entering a land where the primary God is the God of rain or water, Baal. You notice how He says, I will make your rain so that it will water your crops in the beginning of the year and at the end of the year, at the time you need it exactly. I am going to do what the people in that land think their God does. And as a result of that, you're going to be prosperous. Now what He's telling them is, your prosperity is going to come to you because of Me. This is an important distinction for Him to make. It's not because this land is situated geographically so all these things take place. And I want you to know from the beginning, I've chosen this land for you and I will make it prosper. Your cattle will prosper. Your crops will prosper. So that everything you have will be the direct result of the promise that I'm giving to you. Now what God is doing is setting Himself up to say, I take care of you. You trust Me. And you have what you have because of Me. Now when He gets to the place where He's talking about going in, He says to them, beginning in chapter 14 verse 22, He's talked about the unclean food and what they should eat, how they should distinguish themselves from the other people in the nation in Canaan. Now He sets another distinction. You are going to be different not only in the things that you eat, but you're going to be different in the financial management of your life. All the people around you will do things one way, but you're going to do it another. And there's a reason for it. Because I have given you every single thing that you have. I gave you the land you live on. I'm going to give you the rain that will help your crops. I'm going to make your cattle fertile and productive. So that everything you have is a gift from Me. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to never forget that. So I'm going to make it different for you. Your neighbors who are followers of Baal can grow their crops and they can take every single penny of their crop and spend it on themselves. But you're not going to be that way. Because here's what I'm asking you to do. I'm asking you to make sure you set aside a tenth of all your fields produced each year. Take the tithe of your grain, new wine and oil, and the first born of your herds and flocks in the presence of the Lord your God, and the place He will choose as a dwelling for His name, so that you may learn to revere the Lord your God always. Here he says something different about the tithe. You're to take the tithe and take it to the place of the temple, and there you're to prepare a meal out of this. You don't spend the whole tithe on it. It's not that all your tithe for a full year, you could eat it in one night. But he's saying you take a part of what you've done and you go and you sit down with me, and you eat with me. I am the owner of everything you have and I've given you this. And so you bring a part of it and you serve a meal with me. You have a meal with the one who owns everything. And you sit down and you enjoy this with your family, so that they know that you are saying everything we have we owe to God. And you leave there the balance of your tithe to take care of the work that God has given to be done in the temple. The Levites don't have anything. I didn't make a promise to them that their cattle would be productive and their field would be productive and they could have all this. I made a promise to them that I would prosper you and because I've prospered you, you are to give this to them and they then will have plenty. All of this, you see, is God's plan for how money is to be managed for the people of Israel. Always conscious that everything belongs to God. Always conscious that no matter what they have in their hand, it is the fulfillment of a promise God made to His people. And they are doing this as a recognition of God's supreme authority and ownership of all that there is. You enjoy this in the place that I've given to you. But if the place is too distant and you've been blessed by the Lord your God and cannot carry your tithe, because the place where the Lord will choose to put His name is so far away, then exchange your tithe for silver. And take the silver with you and go to the place the Lord your God will choose. Use the silver to buy whatever you like, cattle, sheep, wine, other fermented drinks, or anything you wish. Then you and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice. And do not neglect the Levites living in your towns, for they have no allotment or inheritance. Here he says, what I've done is I've said to you, I will prosper you so that you will have plenty. Now of the plenty that I give you, I'm saying to you, take ten percent of it and you go take it to the temple once a year. You can eat with that that's there, you can enjoy it, but you make sure that the Levite both in the local area where you are and at the temple have the balance of this tenth that I've given you. You will be the provision for others that I don't bless quite as much, in other words the leaders of the temple. So that what he does is to say, I want you to live on ninety percent of what your neighbor will live a hundred percent of. You will farm next to them, but you will be required to live on a little bit less. They will see this and they'll wonder why you're giving your money away. And I want you to tell them what this is all about. The Lord made a promise to us. He said he would prosper us and he would give us enough so that we would have enough to live on and to give him ten percent so that he could take care of the priest, so he could take care of our religious community, and we trust him enough to believe that he's going to take care of us. You see, what God asked in this stewardship project was that they have such confidence in God to believe what seems not possible. The two families living in the same area, farming the same kind of ground, raising the same kind of cattle, could have the same kind of success if they followed this stewardship model that God gave them. It's a great act of faith. They had to make a promise that they were going to do something that they had no idea that they could be successful in doing. So God was saying to them, you do this because I've made a promise to you that I'm going to give you enough. And I want you to give it away believing that I will keep my word. I often times hear people say, you know, I can't tithe because I don't make enough. Now if you've committed your life to Christ and he's made the same promise to you, and he does in the New Testament, he makes sure in the New Testament that we understand exactly how this works, therefore I tell you do not worry about your life, or what you will eat or drink, or about your body, or what you'll wear. Is not life more important than food, and body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air. They do not sow, or reap, or stow away in barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not spin or labor, yet I tell you not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that's how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? To the person who's worried and anxious, oh you of little faith. You see stewardship is a matter of trusting God, that's what he's saying. Will God keep his promise? I can sit down and calculate this, and it doesn't always seem like he is going to. Doesn't seem like it's possible. But in the face of not being possible, God says, I want you to do it anyway. Many of the things God asks us to do in our human eyesight and planning do not seem like they're going to work out right. But what he says is, if you will turn the other cheek, I will make this work right. Now it doesn't look like it's going to. In fact, it looks like you're going to get beat up right and left. But he says, if you will do what I tell you, then I will take care of you. God asks us to do things that require that we believe his words. So what he says, if you don't do this, you really lack trust in me. So do not worry, saying what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear. You see, when you ask those questions, you're saying, how can I take care of myself? Which is the wrong question for a follower of Jesus. It's the wrong question for that. For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly father knows that you need them. Verse for you, but seek first his kingdom, he means his control over your life. Seek first his righteousness, he means living in obedience to what he tells us to do. And all these things will be given to you as well. All these things, food, clothes, shelter, will be given to you as well. That's your promise. If you've entered the kingdom of heaven, that's a promise God makes to you. You can choose to worry about it if you want to, but what you're saying is, God, I don't think you're going to deliver. Think about that when you're worried about it. I don't think you're going to keep your promise, so I've got to figure out some way to make this work. And the only way I can figure out is not do what you've told me to do. That's so many people get in this spot. I've never known anybody who had financial difficulties outside of some tragedy who was faithful to be a steward. God just takes care of you. And it's why he promised he would. And if you can't live by the promises of God about your money, you can't trust the ones he has about taking you to heaven. I mean, that's a bigger deal than money. Even pagan people can earn money, but no pagan person can take you to heaven. I mean, that's the biggie. And what he's trying to do is to show these people that their life is daily dependent on him. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. From the Old Testament to the New Testament, the same pattern is being shown. God says, I will guide you, and I'm going to provide for you. Trust me, I will provide for you. You can't live like your neighbors, the Baal worshippers, because they take 100% of what they got, and they spend it on themselves or whatever. You're not going to be able to do that. You've got to sit down and say, okay, what does God want from me? He wants me to give this tithe that he's asked me to give, trusting that if I do what he tells me, he's going to give me enough left over to be able to live on. That's your faith in him. Would he ask me to do something that is disastrous for my life? That's what you have to ask yourself. For many people, this is the hardest thing in their lives to believe. But it is the foundation on which faith is built. Can I trust God? Now see, here's where the rub comes in. Can I trust God to give me enough to do what he says? Can I trust God, on the other side, to give me happiness and fulfillment if I can't have everything my neighbor has? Now, there's no illusion here to say that you're going to have everything that your neighbor can have and buy. Because you know what the pagans do in this world? They take their paycheck, and they spend every bit of it on things that they would like to have or need to have or both. And if they want something, they say, well, what's the payments on it? Then I can borrow money, and I can make payments on it until their lives are full completely of using every penny that they have on stuff that they want. He's asked us to live a different way. To say, I will forego some things I want because God has asked me to do this with my money. That looks like it's a little unfair, but here's his promise. I will give you everything you need. You know what the secret is? It's Paul's. Paul said, I've learned to live if I had a lot. I've learned to live if I've had nothing. But you know what I tell you? I've learned with whatever I have therewith to be content. That's the promise we have. And you'll see people in the Christian life as you live very long in the church who don't have very much, who are faithful tithers and faithful givers, and they never have very much. But if you look at them, they're really content and satisfied and fulfilled. Why does it matter how much you have if what you have gives you fulfillment and contentment? You see, the devil's method of dealing with this is to say, you know, if you had just another coat, then it'd be great. If you just had, you know, one more thing, then you'd be satisfied. If you could get, you know, step up in your house just a little bit, you know, then everything would be right. That's what he does to us. He's, you know, the stupid guy that holds the carrot out in front of the donkey so the donkey will run. Donkey's stupid. He doesn't realize he's never going to get that carrot. But that's what the devil does to us. When you get it, it's used and old. Never is new. What God's asking us to do is to live financially the way he wants us to, to learn to be content with whatever we have and to make sure that we do what he tells us with the money that we have. And a part of that was to take 10% of it and give it to further the work of the kingdom of God. Now, they didn't have a missionary enterprise because they weren't sending missionaries around the world in those days. They didn't have churches. The whole nation was a church. So in our world, it's a little bit different. We have churches that require support. We have missionaries that require support. We have seminaries that need to be funded so they can train workers in the future. All these things that are part of what God does. And he says, I want you to make sure you use those things. What God was doing was declaring to people, I want you to trust me for the day-to-day things of your life, just your food even, and the things that you eat and the way you live in your own home. At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year's produce and store it in your towns so that the Levites who have no allotment or inheritance of their own and the Aeolians, the fatherless, the widows who live in the towns may come, eat and be satisfied so the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. So every third year, take all the tithe and bring it into the town and there you store it so that people who don't have enough, for some reason, widows, orphans, people who have by no choice of their own, no way to be able to provide for themselves, I am going to provide for them because I am going to give you enough that every third year you can take it and store it and those people will then have enough too. I am going to ask you to give what you have and put it in a place so that the people who do not have what's necessary will have enough. Two things that he wanted. One is, by the resource you have, I want you to take care of your family, but I am going to give you enough so that if 10% of it you take and give to my work in the kingdom, it will take care of that and then 10%, that same thing, will also take care of the people who are living among you who don't have enough to eat. I am giving them enough to eat. By giving you more than I, you have to have so that you will give that to them. That's why it's important to talk to God about what you give for an offering. He knows how many missionaries need to be sent. He knows how many people need to be helped. We don't know that, but he tells us exactly what he wants us to do and it will always be adequate. What he's trying to teach us is, I will guide you and if you will do what I tell you, I will provide materially for you. This is a promise of God. And the test is, do you really trust me financially more than you trust yourself? It's a hard thing to do. And at the very core of this, God is asking us to believe that everything we have comes from him and that everything he gives us is enough. The two things he asks is, let me control what you spend, both of the 90 percent and of the 10, because it's all mine. I want you to have good times. You can take your money, the tithe here, and bring it to the temple and have the biggest banquet you can imagine. With me, sitting with you, enjoy it. I don't want you to starve to death, but I want you to learn to live within the boundaries of what you really need and not overstep it. How can you do that? When you ask his guidance for the 90, he's already given it for the 10. And when you ask it for the 90, he gives it for the 10, then you have guidance for all of it. And what does he say? I want you to do this so that I can bless you in all the things you do to earn a living. Okay, flip that over. If you don't do this, I'm not going to. What would you rather have? Ninety percent feeling certain that God's going to bless you, or 100 percent thinking you're on your own? And that's why God calls it stewardship. We are stewards of what God has placed in our hands and accountable to him for what we do with it. And how we do these things declares to the world that we believe God is the owner of everything and that he has provided everything we have and we're accountable to him for it. We live different than the rest of this world out here. Not just by going to church, but by the way we spend our money. For spending our money, the 90 and the 10, is an act of faith for the follower, the believers of God. Let's pray. And so Lord, we ask that you would help us to trust you more than ourselves. We ask you to guide us in all the use of the resources you've given us. That the world around us might see how much we trust you. We even risk giving when you tell us to, because we know that you're never going to lead us to ruin. And we ask that our lifestyle, even our management of money, would declare to the world how great you are. Teach us to be stewards of our lives and to live in faith. Amen.